Exodus 34:29 – 35
7 February, 2016
Pastor Arthur Faught
I hear it in the commercials. I see it on the website. I read it on posters
that hang down in the store.
Save money. Live better. Walmart.
For a slogan, they nailed it pretty good. You may never like to shop at
Walmart. You may want to turn the car around in disgust, as soon as you see the
packed parking lot no matter what time of the day or day of the week it is. You
may fault Walmart as a chain store and as an employer for reasons that appear on
the evening news every now and then. But there’s more than a good chance you
will remember their slogan.
It sticks, because it’s simple. Five words. That’s it! It’s the perfect 21st
Century ad that takes into account short attention spans and people who want the
point now or forget it. Several seconds or less and they are already changing the
channel.
And do you notice the flow of the slogan? Save (1 syllable active verb.
You’re in control here and you know what’s best for you, & Walmart isn’t going
to stand in your way.) money (2 syllable noun that’s on people’s minds especially
these days. But when does money ever go out of style?). Live (1 syllable active
verb again. You’re doing something here; you’re not just sittin’ around. But even
Walmart doesn’t want, so the impression goes, you to spend all day in the store;
you have a life to live) better (2 syllable adverb; they got this parallel structure
down pat. Walmart is just a tool in your hand to help you. To improve the décor
of your home, the variety of your entertainment, the way you take care of
yourself). (And just so that you can thank them later and shop there again … 2
syllable proper noun that breaks the previous rhythm – Save money. Live better –
and punches the point with a left-right knockout:) Walmart.
Those of you who have worked with advertising know how much time,
how many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars a company spends
for a slogan like that. For only five words. Now, I may be close or way off in
my interpretation, but I don’t think that they put any less thought into it, whoever
came up with the slogan.
Slogans need to send a message. If they don’t, they’re pointless.
But with repetition and various usage, such as in television commercials
and on their website and so on, the message can effectively sink in and cause an
appropriate response as they intended: you want to shop at Walmart.
Of course, if you’re not paying enough attention, that message can still
miss its mark. And you can always refuse it.
But that’s never wise, when it comes to a message from the Lord. Even
if it’s unspoken.
Take another look at the opening verses in the Old Testament reading
for today. “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of
the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant
because he had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw
Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him” (vv. 29,
30). What was the Lord’s message there? And you notice that not a word had
been spoken yet – Moses had come around the corner into plain view, but Aaron
and the others immediately had a strong reaction. They ran.
Now, this wasn’t the first time Moses had been in the Lord’s presence
on the mountain and enveloped by his heavenly glory. This was the second forty
day-and-night stay on Mount Sinai for Moses. (There was a message right there
too for the people with regards to the forty days.) The first time happened shortly
after the Lord himself gave the Ten Commandments, thundering the holy words
from the top of the mountain for all the people to hear him clearly. Well, they all
freaked out – fell on their knees and fear was written all over their faces. And so,
they asked Moses to act as mediator: “Speak to us yourself and we will listen.
But do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Ex 20:19). He did. And the
Lord thought it a good idea, as well. Then, God gave Moses the specifics about
the covenant he was making with Israel – “1ow if you obey me fully and keep
my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession” (Ex
19:5) & ratified it by having Moses, Aaron, & the elders sacrifice burnt offerings
and enjoy a fellowship meal with God on the mountain. Once that was done, God
told Moses to come up alone to receive further instructions and the two tablets
God used to inscribe the 10 Commandments on. (Stone tablets – another message
there for the people.) For the next forty 24 hour periods no one saw or heard from
Moses.
Because he’s on the mountain with God, right? But that doesn’t stop the
people from taking matters into their own hands. “As for this fellow Moses who
brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Ex
32:1). So, they make an idol, even with the fire and cloud of God’s glory still
covering the top of Mount Sinai. At the foot of the mountain the people toss their
gold jewelry and coins into the melting pot to fashion the golden calf. Then, the
Lord cuts the conference with Moses short, because the leaders and people below
have already broken the covenant. With the God of heaven and earth! And, when
Moses comes down to deal with the situation, no one’s afraid or concerned about
what’s going on, except when they get caught.
It went much better, didn’t it, this second time around? After another 40
days and nights with the Lord on Sinai, Moses came down and no idol anywhere.
No broken stone tablets on the ground. No corpses in the camp of those who last
time refused to get the Lord’s message about idolatry.
Yet, this time Moses’ face was glowing with the radiance of the Lord’s
holiness, and people were terrified. “When Moses came down from Mount
Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware
that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When
Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were
afraid to come near him” (34:30, 31). What was the Lord saying with Moses’
face, that Aaron and everyone else needed to understand? Don’t ever forget who
you are and, more importantly, who he is. The Lord is holy. You and I are not.
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Don’t take that to mean we need to continually remind ourselves then to
show proper respect to the Lord. That we have to put a little bit more conscious
effort into our worship of and prayers to him. No, no, no … that’s not the point.
The message is that you and I have no right – it is unthinkable for us as sinners to
approach God in any way (PERIOD). And we forget who we are, when we’re just
spitting out words in prayer to him. We forget who he is, when we don’t worship
with a mixture of awe and trembling. The One we worship, the One to whom we
owe our lives each day, is the same One who says that, when people see him in
his unveiled glory on the Last Day, they will cry out to mountains to bury them
alive, in order to hide from his holy presence. Because before the Lord we cannot
downplay or deny our sin, not to him who is Perfection.
Because the difference between God and us all is the difference between
light and darkness, life and death. Sin is the darkness that fills our souls and overshadows us with death all life long.
We’re stuck at the bottom of the mountain, which might as well be the
bottom of hell, if we can’t ever approach our God, let alone be in his presence,
except on penalty of death. That was why Aaron and the rest of the leaders were
afraid of Moses. He and Aaron were brothers. They witnessed and went thru the
Exodus together. But Moses’ radiant face brought them into too close for comfort
contact with the holy God again.
Yet, Moses embodied another message from God. “But Moses called to
them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and
he spoke to them. Afterward all the Israelites came near him …” (vv. 31, 32).
Sinful people could not approach God. But God could approach them through a
mediator.
That’s why Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain when not just his face
but his whole person radiated heavenly glory proves vital for our faith. Because
as Lord he revealed the brilliance of his holiness, even if just for a few moments,
right in front of Peter, James, and John – in the company of sinful people like you
and me. And they did not die. They saw Perfection, the Holy One from eternity,
and, sure, they became afraid; Peter started to talk out of his mind about tents and
taking some time off at the peak. But they still were alive afterwards. No
burning sulfur from the sky fell on them. No thunderbolts to strike them dead on
the spot. No earthquake to swallow them into darkness. “When the voice had
spoken, they found that Jesus was alone” (Lk 9:36). Three sinners were alive
and alone with the Lord God!
That is the grace of God: we could never approach him because of our
sin. And so out of his mercy God comes to us as our Savior. He doesn’t change –
Jesus was never any less holy or almighty or transcendent during his earthly life
than he had always been from eternity, because the Lord cannot possibly change
ever. But what does our Savior do, in order to draw near to us, to save us? He
hides his glory. He sets aside his power. He takes on our flesh and blood. Or, to
borrow from the Exodus reading, the Son of God covered his deity under the veil
of humiliation and sacrifice.
“Even death on a cross” (Php 2:8).
Jesus’ cross is the heart of God’s message to the world, that he suffered
the penalty of that eternal separation & hellish death our sin had coming, because
he’s never wanted to hide his love and forgiveness from you or me. The Savior
came. He made his Father’s relentless love known with every word spoken, every
step taken, every drop of blood, because of the all-consuming purpose to reunite
the broken-up family of God and man.
And the Lord still comes, much in the same way he drew near to people
in person as the Christ or centuries before through Moses. He’s hidden. “When
Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he
entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he
came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been
commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the
veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD” (Ex 34:33 –
35). Not that Jesus hides from us, so that we look but can’t find him. Though, at
times it may seem that way. But really that’s sin blinding us to the truth. At this
time the Lord chooses to reveal himself in ways that are best for us. That connect
with & communicate to us at our level. That don’t send us running the other way
but that inspire the courage to come to him with our needs, our sorrow –
Even our sin.
And we rightly call those ways the means of grace, the ways God shows
his gracious love to us personally. He doesn’t leave it up to us to figure him out,
but the Spirit tells us plainly in words that reveal exactly what we need to know
about God and from God. And to encourage us to come to him, speak with him,
not out of fear but as our Father, God helps us remember how he gave our souls
rebirth with the water of baptism and that we now belong to his family. His
eternally-begotten Son, in fact, makes that intimate and unbreakable bond he has
established with each of us tangible by actually giving us his body and blood,
crucified and risen from death, in his sacred meal.
Each way promises life everlasting with the Triune God.
Each means makes it possible today for you and me to be …
Close to God by Grace in Christ!
That’s not a cute slogan. That’s the certainty of salvation we have.
Amen.
“May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father,
who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,
encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word”
(2 Th 2:16, 17).
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